Folders vs. Metadata in the modern world

I have worked with many clients over many versions of SharePoint and over the years the attitude to folders has evolved quite a lot. I am sure many of us remember certain colleagues who have been quite stubborn in their view that folders are the spawn of the devil! In the beginning, there were file […]

Is SharePoint Accessible?

Around the world there are legislative requirements that guarantee that services are accessible by those with impairments. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 and the subsequent Equality Act of 2010 enforce these rights and in the US Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act enforces them. These acts essentially place a duty of […]

Office 365 and Azure –Most useful links

There are many links that I find myself going to over and over again for different elements of Office 365 and Azure Blogs Technology URL Office 365 https://blogs.office.com Intune https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/microsoftintune/ Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ Roadmap For details of the developments that are in progress and being rolled out Technology URL Office 365 https://roadmap.office.com Cloud Platform https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/roadmap/ […]

OneDrive for Business Updates

For years the pain of the OneDrive for Business sync client has plagued the effective use of the tool. Last December the “next generation” sync client was released. It had one major capability missing though: It would not work with document libraries in SharePoint Online. This may not be major issue for many, however, as […]

Set Azure AD password to never expire

I use Office 365 for my family’s e-mail and document storage, but they are not keen on regularly changing passwords – the IT department receives a lot of hassle Although the UI does not allow for the passwords to be set to never expire, PowerShell does. First off, we can get the status of all […]

It is a common practice to perform calculations in Excel, and then to copy the calculations into Word. A drawback to this approach is the double entry (and double update) of values. There is another option: Word formulas. I have created a simple table in Word 2013 with 4 columns and 5 rows and put […]

I was recently asked by a client for a way to find out what features are activated as site and site collection level. The following PowerShell is the easiest way I know: if ((Get-PSSnapin -Name “microsoft.sharepoint.powershell” -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null ) { Write-Host “Adding SharePoint Snap-in” -ForegroundColor Cyan; Add-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue; } else { […]

I use Excel a lot, always have done and probably always will do. I find it a great tool for estimating, quick planning and most of all quick analysis. Over the years I have learnt a few tips and tricks that have sped up the way I use of Excel. Often, I come across others […]

I have been doing a fair bit of experimenting with JavaScript frameworks such as AngularJS, Bootstrap and JQueryUI. One of the tools I rely on is Chrome with the Developer Tools because, unlike Internet Explorer’s Developer Tools, the Chrome version can be docked to the right of the window. This little feature makes it far […]

It is a common question from clients: Do I need an enterprise licence to use InfoPath? The simple answer is “Yes” in most cases, however, it depends on the functionality that you want to use. And there are alternatives that do not require Enterprise licencing. This exploration of the the features and licencing of InfoPath […]

When developing Apps for SharePoint it is essential to have a development site for testing your Apps. This can be done in several ways: Provision a Developer site within an Office 365 tenant with an E plan With an Visual Studio Premium or Ultimate MSDN subscription Sign-up for a Developer Subscription Create a site collection […]

In virtually every installation of SharePoint 2013 there is a requirement to activate the App Store. While there are some complications with the process due to the involvement of network level configuration, the SharePoint side of the configuration is relatively straightforward. Network Configuration This article assumes that several pre-requisites have been completed successfully: A forward […]

I am a big fan of Excel tables – they make my life easier in many different ways. One of the biggest ways is through the ease of referencing table content and summary data. One task that is not so obvious is how to validate a cell against a list of contents from a table. […]

When creating a new virtual SharePoint farm, several servers will be required in most cases: AD – if the farm is in a lab or is in a completely greenfield environment SQL – Not essential in a research/development environment, but usually essential in most other environments SharePoint – At least one SharePoint machine will be […]

The first time I tried to install Windows Server 2012 R2 on a Generation 2 VM I ran into the following error: The ISO image was mounted as a virtual DVD drive But pressing a key was not accepted by the VM. It turns out that the Generation 2 VMs do not accept a key […]